Fayette stood up from the blood covered floor and leaned against the kitchen top to steady herself. She grimaced at the bloody prints she was leaving on the surface and pushed herself away from it. She was pretty sure she had never been this dirty in her life. Ok, that was intense. But I gained a level! And a new skill! Let’s have a look...

She focused her mind on the prompt, and a more detailed overview of the skill entered her mind.

[Cutlery Control – A Maid is always working with cutlery, and with this new skill, it all becomes a breeze! Easily set your cutlery exactly where you want it, how you want it. Setting up for dinner parties has never been easier!]

Hmm, we don’t have many large dinner parties here and I’m not generally in charge of them... Wait, no, there’s a more important situation here. Can I fight with it? Seems like it’s still mainly for attendant’s work...

She did not have time to think more on her skill before she heard rapid footsteps approaching from the hallway she had entered through. Her fight had not been silent, and consequences were on the way.

The sight of two kobolds bursting into the room froze Fayette for a bit – but working on instinct she made the correct move. She instantly threw both the knife and fork she was still holding at the first of the monsters. She felt her new skill activate, and the cutlery veered with supernatural precision, moving exactly where she wanted them to go.

The knife hit the kobold in the left eye and the fork in the right. The monster screamed out from the pain of having its eyeballs shredded apart and stopped right in its tracks, clawing at its eyes with rage. The other one was still moving forward though, now with even more danger in its eyes. There was a table between it and Fayette, but that distance would be covered quickly.

Bloody hells, if only I had more cutlery to throw-

As she made that thought, Fayette felt [Cutlery Control] activate again. Knives, forks and spoons from all around the room began to float to her waiting grip. Elated, she prepared to throw them too, but the kobold was smarter than that. It had seen the fate its companion had suffered, so it put one arm in front of its head, keeping its face covered with scaly arms.

Damn, it’s smart enough to cover its eyes!

Fayette tried to throw a pair of forks at the kobold’s feet, but the monster activated some sort of shield skill, and its scales emitted a green glow. Her forks clattered against the now-hardened surface, not leaving a scratch behind.

Fayette backed up while desperately trying to think of a new plan. She ran her eyes around the room and saw spoons, forks, plates, all manner of things spread about—none useful in this fight. She backed into the stove and the sound of boiling water snapped her out of the panic. She turned her head and noticed the boiling pot of soup behind her. Of course!

She grabbed the soup pot and hurled the boiling contents all over the kobold just as it rounded the corner.

“Let’s see your hardening help against that!”

The boiling broth sizzled against the kobold’s scales and scalded its face and most critically, its eyes. Now blinded, the creature lost all composure and began grasping around wildly as it roared and screamed. The sound was high-pitched and bestial. Fayette took some distance from the blinded creature and picked her broom back up.

The kobold seemed to have no idea where she was, so she carefully got in brooming range and proceeded to smack the kobold on the head as hard as she could. The impact had a satisfying crunch to it and sent the creature splayed out on the floor. It tried to get back up, but it had no chance. Fayette steadied her grip and hammered at it. Then she hammered it again, again and did not stop before it collapsed into a bloody heap, leaving only the gleaming monster core behind.

Alright, one down.

The other one was still clawing about blindly near the room’s entrance. It was making a lot of noise, but no more kobolds seemed to be approaching. Is this part of the mansion clear? What are the monsters up to?

Fayette took care in approaching the monster and made sure it did not sense which direction she was coming from. Once the monster was in brooming range, she battered it down without mercy.

Silence reigned in the kitchen once again, only broken by a ding.

[Two pieces of trash cleared, nice!]

[Progress towards next level: 30%]

Fayette absent-mindedly tried to wipe her broom’s end of all the blood while she surveyed the scene: three kobolds slaughtered by her hand. Cracking skulls with her broom had felt satisfying, almost too satisfying. Do I actually have a knack for this?

She was surprised at how calm she felt—especially as the corpse of a former co-worker was only a few feet away. True, she had never been that close to any of her co-workers here, but they had still practically lived together for two years.

Am I really this cold? Or is this just what battle feels like? It’s quite different from the stories...

As Fayette walked back through the kitchen, she made sure to pick up the monster cores and some cutlery into her pockets. The cores were shiny, and her new skill seemed to have more value in combat than she had expected. The throws may not hold much power, but the accuracy is no joke. I can see a fork to the eye solving many situations.

She tossed some spoons around to get a better feel for the skill, then practiced calling them back into her hands. It always took a bit of practice to get used to a new skill.

[Cutlery Control] seemed to have two effects: it allowed her to both call cutlery into her arms and send it where she wanted in a radius of about four metres. The skill did not seem to have much of a cooldown, at least with how she was using it. Trying to hurl the cutlery a longer distance made the throw lose its accuracy, so it seemed to be mostly useful for close combat. Or setting kitchenware before a big dinner party.

Fayette was rather curious about how the skill would develop at later ranks, would it increase in power, range or accuracy? If she was fortunate, maybe all three. Or maybe that would not be fortunate, specialization did generally lead to more outright strength...

Wait, I got a skill point from the level up, almost forgot about that. She debated putting the point in her new skill, but decided against it. It was still too new to her, and she did not know whether she really wanted to lock it in with a skill point.

She thought over her skills and decided to ultimately put the point in [Cleaning Tool Proficiency]. The fight had gotten risky when she lost grip of her broom, and she still felt it was her most reliable weapon. Getting a bit better at handling it couldn’t hurt.

She mentally assigned the point, and soon a notification rang out.

[Cleaning Tool Proficiency advanced to level 3!]

Fayette felt her grip on the broom grow surer and more practiced. She experimentally whisked it around for a bit and was satisfied to find the act a lot easier than before. Right, that should help a bit. Best get a move on.

The wounds to her forearms were not severe – just surface scratches that did not really need extra care. She was honestly more bothered by the damage to her outfit than to her skin. A sullied outfit really unsettled her—being aware of the blood splatters all over it felt like a persistent buzz at the back of her head.

There were kobolds ahead of me and behind me. Seems like they are just running around where they like, looking for people. Where is the organised resistance? I should keep moving and try to evade them.

Her thoughts gathered; Fayette headed to the other door in the kitchen. She opened it, revealing a dining room that had been torn apart by battle. Tables and chairs had been flipped over and the chandelier dropped. Blood splatters all over the walls hinted at slain monsters, but the scattered human corpses had certainly not won this fight.

Fayette traced a rectangle in front of her heart—a silent prayer for the fallen. If she had any say in it, she would make those kobolds pay. And she was about to get the means to do just so.

Outside the dining room was another battle-torn hallway, but it seemed clear of enemies right now. One of the doors in the hallway belonged to her cleaning cupboard, where she would find what she needed for her plan.

Fayette felt her anticipation growing as she crept forward—the broom had been working well enough so far, but she doubted it would fare well in a proper two-on-one fight. She needed something more effective, something for larger hordes.

She had to hurry, but her alchemy supplies were organised well. If she used the materials liberally and threw in some precious catalysts, she could finish the process rather fast. She opened the cupboard, expecting to see her neatly laid out supplies.

Instead, she found everything piled up in a messy clump. Crouched above the equipment, shivering from fright, the [Head Maid] Clara.